Rangers Lead the Way
by Hawki
Summary: Battle for the Grid Oneshot: He'd never thought of himself as a soldier until now. But with the entire world burning, that had changed.


_A/N_

_So _Battle for the Grid _is looking a bit more promising than it originally did. Granted, fighting games aren't really my thing anymore, so it's kind of a moot point, but regardless, drabbled this up._

* * *

**Rangers Lead the Way**

I've never thought of myself as a soldier until now.

Be it through ignorance or innocence, I cannot say. But it's true. I've thought of myself as a power ranger. A warrior even. But never a soldier. Until now, Rita Repulsa has followed the same strategy over and over – putties, monster, big monster, and always in the same place. Never more than once. I'd fight her forces. I'd fight them. Kill them I suppose, but it's never been a word that crossed my mind. Often I'd come late, but always still in time to help save the day. Because the day was always saved. We're the Power Rangers. That's what we do.

Or did, I reflect.

It's funny, but upon reflection, I had more reason to hate Rita than any of my friends – the ones who took me in, after all I did. Thinking of them now, it's hard to imagine them hating anything. Maybe it's why, after everything that happened, that I never hated Rita. That despite enslaving my mind, despite controlling my body like a puppet on strings, it never occurred to me that the witch had to die. Maybe her poison didn't linger in my soul. Or maybe because being a power ranger was just that damn fun.

But that was then. This is now. And there's nothing fun with what I'm doing. With what I'm seeing. With what I, and all the others, have failed to stop.

Angel Grove is burning. California is burning. The entire west coast is burning. The country's burning, the continent's burning, the world is burning. It's what would have happened if Zordon never recruited us. It's what might have happened if Rita had any understanding of strategy. It's what's happening right now, because six teenagers with attitude can't fight against a global invasion where the enemy is your equal in technology. Or magic. I can't be sure where the tech ends and the magic begins – Billy once said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I bet that's a quote from something. If human civilization, human culture, is to be saved, then maybe I can find out. But until then, I fight. We all do.

I wonder if they know what I do. That the leader of the enemy is a man named Drakkon. That this man is me, if I'd never been saved, if I willingly embraced the malevolence within myself. I've seen the pictures Alpha 5 showed us, of a ranger clad in white, yet dark is his heart, and dark are his goals, if simple. Destruction is always simple. Destruction doesn't require a plan when you have such overwhelming force. When the skies are filled with ships of war, when the streets are filled with black-clad soldiers. Like the Black Knight, only without Arthur to stop them. Mastodon troopers they're called. Some warped, twisted version of Zach, only while there's only one black ranger here, these troopers, these servants of a madman…their number is legion. Their name is death.

I'm fighting one of them right now.

They're tough, these bastards. Not as strong as any of us, but stronger than one of Rita's monsters. Now imagine fighting five, even ten of these soldiers at a time. They're everywhere. There's not a single military force in the world that's been able to stop them. Until now, they could count on us to defend Earth. Now…I don't think I can call it complacency. Nothing could have prepared the world for this. Even Zordon couldn't have foreseen his doppelganger warning us of this invasion, let alone doing anything to prevent. All we can do is fight. All I can do is fight.

There's one Mastodon trooper left now. I'm exhausted. My bones ache, my armour is scorched, and I wish for it all to end. If the trooper has any such wishes, he gives no sign. He just staggers towards me, his power axe being dragged along the ground. Its butt is hot from laser fire. Its steel is caked in blood. None of it my own, and yet, it feels like it. It's a reminder of what I've failed to stop. It's a reminder of what I would have done if I wasn't saved.

I can't save this man. I can't save any of them. I can only fight them. I can only kill them. Is that murder? I never thought of destroying Rita's monsters as murder, and it was most certainly justified. But while this is justified as well, there's something about killing your own kind that causes my blood to run cold. It reminds me that until recently, I was a teenager with an overabundance of green clothes playing at war. Now, the ranger's gone. The armour remains. And the soldier is born.

We fight in silence – no theatrics, no dances, no exclamations of power and joy. Just a flurry of punches and kicks. The green ranger bears the symbol of a dragon, and a dragon is what I've become. Fire. Fury. A heart of scale. I down the trooper with a final spinning kick, causing his helmet to fly off, and his body to stumble to the ground.

He's not Zach. There's a thousand reasons why I could tell you he's not Zach. But first among them is his eyes. Those blank, empty, soulless eyes. Its mind control more refined than even Rita's magic. They're eyes that are a reminder that this is what Drakkon does to people – chews them out, spits them out, and uses puppets without strings. Puppets all the same, but with no means for freedom. No strings to cut. No way to wish to be a real boy again. The trooper looks at me, and reaches for his axe, ready to shoot. It won't do much, but there's thousands like him. I have to finish this.

I take out my dagger. No song in this moment bar that of silence. No eulogy as I cut his throat. No Dragonzord, which is recovering from its last battle. No thunder from the sky – nothing to counter a power and force that this world has never seen.

"Does it please you?"

_Drakkon. _I pick up the trooper's helmet – we've long learned that each of their helmets has an in-built camera that, among things, functions as a visual communicator. In the trooper's visor, I see Drakkon looking back at me.

"Does it please you?" he whispers again. "To actually taste blood? To give into your impulses?"

"I'm not giving into anything," I murmur.

"Then you're weaker than I thought," he sneers. He leans back in his throne. "It's so strange, seeing you like this. You wear the armour of a slave, and yet you fight against your master. Or _did _fight, I suppose."

"I'm fine with my armour."

"Even if you know it's origin? Even when you know it comes from tainted magic?" He leans forward. "How much longer, I wonder? How long until your armour, your power, gives out?"

"My body will give out long before my armour does."

"An interesting proposition. But fear not. Your challenge can easily be met."

Drakkon laughs. Not like Rita. Not like Goldar. Not like any monster. He laughs, and my blood runs cold. He laughs, not just because he's evil. Not just because he's looking at his own, weaker reflection. He laughs because he's committing mass murder…and he's enjoying it.

"I'll kill you," I whisper.

"Were I to bend the knee to you now, I bet you would. But alas, I have no interest in ending my own life to make you like me through some fragmentation of the soul. No. You're going to die among the rubble of your world, knowing that there was no other way it could end." He looks to the side before meeting my gaze again. "Now I must go. Pressing matters to attend to. Rest assured that when next I gaze upon you, it'll be your head on a lance."

I wish I had some kind of witty comeback for that. But even if I did, it wouldn't matter – he terminates the feed before I can do or say anything anyway.

And I'm left alone. By the body of a brainwashed drone. In the ruins of Angel Grove. In the last days of planet Earth.

I take off my helmet – my hair's drenched with sweat. My helmet, scarred as it is, looks back at me. Once, this was a visage of terror I reflect. Once, the green ranger was nothing more than a doppelganger of five other colours. Once, perhaps, the man who destroyed the world wouldn't be wearing white armour, but green. Once, perhaps…

Perhaps many things. Perhaps it's all for nothing. Perhaps Drakkon's right, and I'm going to die horribly. But until that…until that, I'm going to keep wearing the helmet. I'm going to keep fighting. I'm going to do all these things, because the green ranger has come to mean something. Green, the colour of grass, of fields, of forest, of life. Green, the colour of the Earth. Green, the sixth colour. Green, the sixth power ranger.

Green means a lot of things. But it barely matters.

I'm a soldier now.

And all I can do is fight.


End file.
